ELECTION 2012

Who follows God-focused logic of America's founding?

Exclusive: Alan Keyes sees no one in GOP field willing to buck elite's Randianism

Once a high-level Reagan-era diplomat, Alan Keyes is a long-time leader in the conservative movement. He is well-known as a staunch pro-life champion and an eloquent advocate of the constitutional republic, including respect for the moral basis of liberty and self-government. He has worked to promote an approach to politics based on the initiative of citizens of goodwill consonant with the with the principles of God-endowed natural right.

Just as I was thinking about writing a commentary on the manipulative aspects of the coverage of the debate featuring the folks thus far identifying themselves as contenders for the GOP nomination for president, I ran across the video embedded above. Posted by one of the grass-roots contributors at aipnews.com, it presents footage taken of the episode in 1996 when I was forcibly prevented from participating in the 1996 GOP presidential debate in Atlanta, Ga. The video includes a pretty accurate account of the context, including the role played by the so-called news media.

The episode was the beginning of my forcible re-education regarding the real nature of the existing political process. It’s a course of study that took several years of course work with professors at the Republican school of advanced political skulduggery before I attained the Master’s degree of insight into the sham twin-party system I have shared in columns here and on my blog. (Isn’t “skulduggery” a great old word? Apparently it has its origins in a Scottish term that referred to fornication or adultery. Given the politically imperious gayety [sic] now so widely in evidence on the political scene, it’s more apt than ever.)

These days I would disagree somewhat with the video’s commentary, which sees the corruption of the political process as a function of the news media’s ideological bias. In fact, I think, it’s the other way around. The elite forces that have for the time being successfully hijacked the U.S. political process are responsible for the media’s anti-American slant. They use their money, their control of the universities and other institutions of higher education, and their stranglehold on the media cohort’s livelihood and access to inculcate and enforce an elite bias against anything likely to revive and perpetuate the God-respecting principles of right and justice that produced and can alone restore America’s strength and confidence.

Just as GOP leaders now scheme to eliminate the political base of successful tea-party candidates, so in my experience they have done everything in their power to sidetrack, squelch, co-opt, discredit, distract and disbar any grass-roots effort to reassert respect for founding principles and truly republican social and economic policies. This isn’t because they jealously guard their partisan power. It’s because the real basis of that power is not partisan at all, at least not in terms of Democrats and Republicans. The parameters of power are established in terms of one’s willingness to discard the God premise of the American Declaration of Independence. It has to do with one’s willingness to accept the specious redefinition of right in terms of unbridled freedom. That redefinition has displaced the common-sense view that rights are connected with the God-endowed good conscience that inclines people to do what is right.

On my blog I’m presently featuring a one-minute video of an interview that arrestingly verifies Ayn Rand’s deep-seated hostility to God and religion. It also points out the incongruity involved when allegedly conservative Republicans burble enthusiastically about her “free enterprise” philosophy. The forces that dominate the GOP revel in the Godless materialism Rand professes. That’s why they are so intent on pushing to the back burner (or off the stove) issues that harken back to the moral understanding of the American Founding. They do so because such issues demand answers that respect God-ordained natural right and laws crafted to respect God’s justice.

Listen as you will, you won’t hear such answers from the field of allowed GOP contenders. They’ll allude to God in “God bless you” fashion, with throwaway lines meant to deceive or comfort the undiscerning. But which one of them follows the God-focused logic of the American Declaration of Independence? That would lead inevitably to stands that contradict the “what-me-worry” indifference candidates like Herman Cain and Ron Paul display when they refuse simply to reject the movement to legitimize homosexual relations. It would also lead to courageous, up-front leadership when it comes to morally vital issues like defending the God-endowed rights of the natural family, or respecting the unalienable right to life of nascent human beings.

The real problem, of course, isn’t just with individual candidates, but with the fact that participation in the twin-party sham strengthens and legitimizes it, whether purposefully or not. But the sham is not about just phony political partisan/bipartisanship. It’s about the underlying elite agreement on rejecting God as the authoritative source and judge of human propriety. Those who embrace Ayn Rand’s Godless libertarianism are not only welcomed. They are quietly encouraged and given financial support as vehicles for corrupting and betraying people who sincerely long for the restoration of American freedom. By contrast, the pandering pantomime that has displaced the politics of liberty has no place for anyone who gives the authority of God its rightful place of first consideration when dealing with public policy. Yet only such leaders can represent the heart of America’s founding principles, the heart that still reveres the source of self-evident truth that sets us free.